Sunday Downtime - All Evolve Media Sites are being migrated to a new data center Sunday Dec 11, 2016. The migration will occur during an 8 AM to 2 PM (Pacific Time) maintenance window. We will have up to 1 hour of downtime for any of our sites.

I think great socks are the best trick to make rainboots comfy. I use hiking socks with my Wellingtons, and I use a sole insert in the boot. The only thing I have to watch out for is hot feet. I carry sandals with me to wear indoors. No one seems to mind that I leave my boots at the umbrella stand.

__________________“Above all, remember that the most important thing you can take anywhere is not a Gucci bag or French-cut jeans; it's an open mind” Gail Rubin Bereny

A rubber shoe with heel is quite perfect if you can find a nice one, which is quite hard. I used to have these cute little jellie wedge sandals...the heel kept me out of puddles, and were just dressy enough for work. Now I have nice rubber heeled booties. I think Marc Jacobs had some jellies this seaon.

Lately I see a lot of people wearing Crocs, which I guess protect your feet better than flipflops...

This project juxtaposes electricity and water in a raincoat that luminesces in response to droplets of rain. Embroidered water sensors act as inputs to a system with sealed electroluminescent panels that illuminate based on patterns of rain.

The raincoat/cape and hood recall the retro-futuristic designs of Pierre Cardin and Andre Courreges in the sixties while incorporating computational behavior beyond an aesthetic notion of what technology looks like.

Custom-silkscreened luminescent patches extend from the front placket, and respond to water contact on raindrop sensors (one visible on the front hood). The final lamp and sensor configuration is being designed.

As far as footwear I can recommend rubber jodphur boots. They're perfect for when you don't want to wear wellies but want to keep your feet 100% dry. They look pixie boot-ish with short skirts or dresses and, of course, work well with pants.

Pileus is an umbrella connected to the Internet to make walking in rainy days fun. Pileus has a large screen on the top surface, a built-in camera, a motion sensor, GPS, and a digital compass, and it provides two main functions; A Social Photo-sharing and A 3D Map Navigation.

The photo function is connected to a major web service "Flickr". A user can take photo with a camera on the umbrella, and pictures are uploaded to Flickr in two minutes with context tags via a wireless Internet connection. User can also enjoy theirselves watching photo-streams downloaded from Flickr (and video-stream from YouTube on an advanced proto) with simple operation of wrist snapping.

3D Map Navigation is powered by "Google Earth". Detecting a location data from GPS, it shows a 3D bird view around the user. User can walk-through a city comparing the 3D views and real sights, and the map is always updated by GPS and a digital compass. As it has a large screen, it create virtual reality but not immersive.

Now these two functions can be switched by simply fliping a switch. As a future direction of its development, putting a context data on the Internet (e.g. geo-tags on photos), it will be able to provide social local-navigations, social local-ads, and real-time in-place communications. The product aims to provide an augmentation of everyday life synchronizing information on the Internet and the real place.

pileus.net . pic credit: gizmodo.com

__________________“Above all, remember that the most important thing you can take anywhere is not a Gucci bag or French-cut jeans; it's an open mind” Gail Rubin Bereny